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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765049">Rest and Recover</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin'>kaeorin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [83]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Anxiety, Avenger Loki (Marvel), F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Protective Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 07:06:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,713</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24765049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is trying to grind you down, but Loki isn’t going to let that happen.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Loki (Marvel)/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loki's Lullabies [83]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>167</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rest and Recover</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I’m hoping that the majority of you out there have been working hard to make the world a better place. It’s hard and it SUCKS but there is so much that we can do while still socially-distancing and keeping ourselves safe. We can’t go-go-go until we’re burnt out and exhausted, but things aren’t going to change unless we come together to make them. There are petitions to sign, calls and emails to send, self-education to do, and of course donations to be made. I know that it’s hard for me, personally, to remind myself to chill tf out instead of going hard at this 24/7, because this isn’t something that we can fix in a matter of days. Or even weeks. It’s not weak or lazy to sit back when you need to, and let other people carry the weight until you’re rested and ready to carry on.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>These were the nights that got you through the worst of your days. Loki had made dinner, insisting that it was his turn despite the fact that he’d also made dinner yesterday. He’d ushered you into the bathroom and ordered you to take a lovely hot bath. When he did something like this, it made you feel guilty at first, sort of ashamed. Obviously you weren’t doing a great job of hiding your mental state from him. Everything was fucked and maybe sometimes you felt like you were running yourself ragged trying to do whatever you could to help, but you never meant for him to notice. He threatened to lock you inside the bathroom as he pulled the door shut, but made sure to wink at you before it closed all the way.</p><p>So you’d run a bath. You hated to admit that it did feel nice. You didn’t always mess around with bubbles or bath oils or anything like that, but just soaking in the hot water might have been exactly what your body needed. You let yourself doze a bit. You told yourself that your exhaustion didn’t make any sense, with how little physical activity you were doing, but you <i>were</i> making a lot of phone calls, which always drained you just a little, and, anyway, you couldn’t bully yourself out of sleepiness. When you felt like you’d soaked long enough, you got up, dried, and dressed, and then went to find Loki.</p><p>Dinner was nearly finished. Just as you stood in the kitchen doorway, he was bending to check something in the oven. You made your best attempt at a wolf-whistle when he did. He had a great ass. Running over to grab him was probably a bad idea, what with the oven and everything, but you could look all you wanted without startling him into burning himself. If he bent a little lower, jutted his hips out a bit towards you, maybe that was a-okay. You felt yourself grinning and, when he straightened and turned to look at you, so was he. </p><p>Dinner was lovely. Secretly, you were always kind of amazed at how good Loki was at cooking. It was hard to imagine Loki at his mother’s elbow in the kitchen as a child, watching as the queen of the realm cooked anything at all, but he must have learned somewhere. You chatted as you ate, like always. Conversations with Loki tended to be winding and unpredictable, never following any set path, but that was something you loved about him. His mind leapt from topic to topic, and as well-informed as he always seemed to be about any given subject, he always listened intently to whatever it was that you had to say as well. It had taken a long time for you to get used to the way he fixed his eyes on you over the dinner table, but by now you were mostly pretty good at ignoring the way it seemed to fill you with butterflies.</p><p>After dinner, he tried to usher you out of the kitchen entirely. He was precious and sweet, but it wasn’t going to happen. You planted yourself determinedly in front of the sink and put your hands on your hips. He wanted you to go sit down. He wanted to take care of the dishes even though you’d both agreed at the very start that whoever hadn’t cooked was on dish duty. It was so surreal to be fighting with a celestial prince over something so mundane and <i>human</i>, but you were not about to let him take over every last chore tonight. Loki had a way of straightening his spine to bring himself to his full height and glaring down at you with eyes that burned like ice, and, yeah, it was pretty intimidating, but you knew he’d never hurt you. You set your jaw and glared back up at him.</p><p>“If you won’t go willingly, I can <i>make</i> you, you know.” It was another bluff. While it was true that he had strength on his side, not to mention his supernatural abilities, you knew that he’d never use either of those things against you. Or...not in a disagreement, anyway. Sometimes, in very intimate moments, he could lift and move you like you were little more than a ragdoll, and...maybe that did things to you. </p><p>“Then maybe you’ll have to.” You forced your face to go hard, lest any of your desire creep into your expression and give you away. You had much more luck winning arguments with him when you let yourself go soft and pleading, but you’d already given in to dinner without a fight, and the bath. You’d be damned if you were going to let him take care of this, too.”</p><p>Sharp eyes took in the sight of you. His brows furrowed for a moment, before ultimately he rolled his eyes and looked away from you. “I’ll help you. That’s my final offer. Accept it or I’ll haul you into the bedroom and tie you down.”</p><p>Maybe a pleasant thrill ran through you at that. Surely he’d known that it would. He didn’t make those kinds of threats at you often, but they usually worked, when you weren’t feeling particularly...bratty. You felt yourself smiling, just a little, and rolled your eyes back at him. He smirked at you, and the two of you set about taking care of the dishes.</p><p>When everything was squared away at last, he led you into the living room. Not that you put up much of a fight. Part of you wanted to reach for your laptop. It was after business hours so there probably weren’t many people you could call, but there were always petitions to sign and calls to action to share. Lately it felt like you weren’t doing enough. You could never do enough. But Loki took a gentle hold of your wrist and pulled you down onto the couch beside him.</p><p>“Let yourself rest,” he said in a low voice. “You can’t save the world if you’re exhausted.” </p><p>His face was soft. It told you that, if you fought him hard enough, he was willing to relent and let you throw yourself back into work. But there was a tenderness in his eyes that made you especially unwilling to fight him on this. You reached up to caress his cheek. It’d been a long time since you let yourself have a moment with him. He smiled faintly and pressed a little more firmly into your hand. He knew he’d won.</p><p>You spent a long time just sitting together. You nestled in against his side and he kept his arm around your shoulders like it belonged there. You fit perfectly. He let you tell him about the things you were trying to do, the horrors that were going on in the world. He knew a lot about them already, of course—he sat and listened to the same news broadcasts that you did—but he listened to you anyway. Bathed in his patient attention, your frustration bubbled out of you, your anger at the world, your helpless impotence when it came to making real change. Maybe this wasn’t the most relaxing or restful of topics, but it all weighed so heavily on you that you couldn’t help it.</p><p>He said all the right things, of course. He reminded you of the actions you were taking. He reminded you of the changes that were happening in the world as a direct result of what was going on. He cupped your face in his palms and brushed at your angry tears and gently reminded you of every tiny victory that you’d shared with him over the last few weeks. </p><p>“My warrior queen,” he said fondly, refusing to let you avert your gaze. “You are doing what you can. What is that saying? This is a marathon, not a sprint? The world is changing—you are making a difference—but your people have fallen into a rut over generations. Things will not happen overnight.” He tilted your head forward and leaned in to kiss your forehead. You let your eyes close as soon as his lips touched you, and the darkness and his voice soothed something that had been burning inside you for a long time now. “But they will happen. They are happening now. You and your people, you are making a difference. But you are still human. You cannot be afraid to take a moment for yourself.”</p><p>You gave him a quiet laugh, a watery laugh. “And for you?”</p><p>He chuckled under his breath. “Preferably so. Lie down, love. Let us watch a movie.”</p><p>Any other night, you probably would have protested. Loki was not really one for Midgardian media. Sometimes he’d watch nature documentaries—you found that Earthly animals fascinated and amused him—but he was too smart for most movies to be worth watching. But tonight you were just exhausted enough to allow him to guide your head down into his lap. He turned on the television and scrolled through an endless list of movies and then sat back into the cushions and worked his fingers through your hair.</p><p>You didn’t pay much attention to the lights and spectacle on the screen. Instead, you focused on the way it felt when he combed his fingers through your hair. He’d scratch gently at your scalp, twist your hair around his finger, caress it like it was the finest silk. Goosebumps erupted everywhere on your skin even as those relaxing chills moved through you. When you sighed, or moaned quietly, you always got the feeling that he looked down and smiled at you. He held you somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, lulling you into relaxation in a way that you were loath to lose to sleep. Sometimes you whimpered his name, soft and quiet, and tried to fill the word with every last bit of your peace and your gratitude and your contentment. </p><p>When you did, he murmured your name back to you, and it sounded for all the world like he felt the same.</p><p>Whatever you’d done to deserve him, you swore to yourself to keep doing it for the rest of your life.</p>
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